She blinked a few times as if looking at the campgrounds for the first time. “How’d you get those Half Breeds off of me?”
“I sicced them on the big guy.”
Paige had no trouble spotting the Full Blood. It contended with the Half Breeds by wildly swinging his arms to toss the smaller werewolves into the air or ripping them to shreds. When one refused to be shaken loose, the Full Blood gripped the gnarled creature by the head and slammed it down while letting out a bellowing howl. As he ground that creature’s skull into paste, the Full Blood cast his eyes at all the other Half Breeds and roared in a way that forced them to scamper back while twisting their heads aside to bare their throats to him. The minute he ran out of breath, the Half Breeds again caught the scent of the bait mixture that was on him and renewed their attack.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Cole said.
Paige dusted herself off and discovered several gaping wounds in the process. Grabbing a plastic syringe from her belt, she injected the healing serum and growled, “We’re not leaving.” She waited for a Half Breed to get ripped apart and ran in to attack the spot on the Full Blood that the gangly werewolf had been chewing.
The huge, ebon creature started to climb onto its hind legs, but was dragged down by the weight of the Half Breeds. He howled a command for the Half Breeds to back off, which gave Paige a chance to drive her modified weapon in again. This time Cole lent his spear to the cause. Twisting around to bat away the two humans, the black beast left himself open to the persistent Half Breeds. When one of the wiry animals sank its teeth into the spot where the Skinners’ modified weapons had hit, the Full Blood lifted his head to the moon and screamed. Every Half Breed tried to join in with howls of their own, which turned into frenzied yelps as the Full Blood launched itself into the air.
By the time its paws hit the ground, the Full Blood had already shifted to its more compact form. It disappeared in a thick blur of motion, taking the last of the Half Breeds with him.
“God damn it!” Paige shouted. “Grab one of these bodies and take it to the car. Bring back that lighter fluid from the trunk.”
Cole surveyed the area, now a bloodied landscape of gnarled bodies and sprung bear traps. The soil had been churned up by so many different sets of claws that the ground itself looked completely different from when they’d arrived. Even the campfire was a sputtering relic of what it had been an hour ago. “How the hell do we explain this?” he asked. “What do we say to the cops? They’ll be here after all that shooting! Someone had to see what happened!”
Stepping up to glare directly into Cole’s eyes, Paige told him, “We didn’t come here to explain anything to anyone. If someone saw what happened, they can explain however the hell they want. If the cops get here quick enough to stop us, we tell them we were attacked by wild animals. There’s no law against that.”
“How do we answer all of their questions?”
“We won’t have to if you get that lighter fluid and help me torch the rest of these things!” Paige snapped. “Now pick up a damn body and drag it to the car!”
Cole didn’t have much to say to her after that. After pulling in a few deep breaths and wiping the sweat from his eyes, he picked up a damn body and dragged it to the car.
Chapter 19
The closest thing to a cop that Paige and Cole passed on their way out of the nature preserve was a terrified park ranger sitting in a state-owned SUV. The ranger flashed his lights, hopped out of his vehicle, and waved his arms like he was cleared for takeoff. “You headed into the campgrounds?” he asked after Paige rolled down her window.
After all that had happened, she did an admirable job of looking like she was out for a drive and not hauling a dead werewolf. “No,” she said. “I heard shooting coming from back there, so I just wanted to leave.”
“There’s a hell of a lot more than shooting. Some pack of animals tore through here and overturned a Winnebago. If you see anything along the roads, don’t stop. Just keep moving and get to the highway. The police are on their way. Jesus, are you two hurt?”
“I think there’s a fire back there,” Paige told him. “You might want to take a look at that.” Even though the ranger had something else to say to her, he let it go when he caught sight of the flickering glow coming from the nearby campsite. When he looked back at her, Paige had already rolled up her window and was driving away.
Cole twisted around to look behind the Cavalier at the park ranger gawking at the fires they’d set and fumbling with his radio. There weren’t many carcasses in one piece, but they were all ablaze thanks to the lighter fluid that had sprayed on them. “He might have taken down our license plate.”
“Let him. We’ll change them when we pick up Daniels. Give him a call to let him know we’re coming. Also, tell him to have everything ready to go. We need to find somewhere else to stay.”
“You think the fire will get too bad?” Cole asked.
“That ranger will get to it before any of it spreads too far. Werewolves are too damn greasy to burn for very long.”
“So that’s it, huh? I guess we just wait a few days and bait the rest of those things to some other field? Do we at least get a few days off?”
She glanced over at him and grumbled, “Sometimes I don’t know when you’re kidding.”
“What if I’m not kidding?”
“Then you’re just an idiot. Here, take this and get to work.”
Cole nearly cleared his seat when he felt the knife fall onto his lap.
“Now let’s see how well you skin that Half Breed,” she said. “Get at least two good-sized pieces of hide from its body and pull as many teeth as you can. I’ll take all the claws too.” She grinned and looked over at him. “Dumping that bait on them was a hell of an idea.”
“It didn’t work as well as I thought it would. I was kind of hoping for a lot more ripping and tearing and not so much bowing and whining from those Half Breeds.”
“It was enough that you got us out of there,” she said. “Right now, we’ve got other stuff to do. Make that call and get to skinning.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Cole phoned Daniels to let him know they were on their way and then climbed into the backseat to take his first crack at cutting apart a dead monster. Normally, something like that wouldn’t have set too well with him. The smell alone was enough to bring the bottom layer of his stomach contents up to the back of his throat. At that moment, however, with the campsite behind them and getting farther away with every second, he didn’t mind a little dirty work. It meant he was still alive.
A few hours later Cole was still in the car staring out the front passenger side window. Daniels was packed into the backseat, along with most of his and Paige’s gear. The Nymar had one shoulder wedged against the window behind the driver’s seat, due to the fact that his left leg was draped over a flat case. His feet were resting on top of more cases, which practically forced him to eat his own knees. Judging by the expression on Daniels’s face, he wasn’t at all happy with the arrangement.
“Why don’t you just throw me in the trunk?” he griped. “I’d be able to stretch out more.”
“Do you mind sharing space with a pile of dead Half Breeds?”
Daniels winced. “You Skinners truly are disgusting ghouls.”
“Hey, for a guy who stank up his motel room as badly as you did, I’m surprised to hear any complaints.”
“For your information, I had a breakthrough in my research.”
“Yeah?” Cole asked. “It smelled like burnt hair. Didn’t I see a cleaning lady leaving your room right when we got there?”